Vivenna Drinks Juice at an Outdoor Restaurant and Plans the Meeting with the Idrian Leaders in the City

Here we have Vivenna showing off her end of the reversal quite well. This is one of the few places where I have a character point out the reversal taking place. Vivenna has learned to blend into Hallandren—she’s learned not to judge quite so much. She’s still not where she needs to be, but the transformation is happening.

The conversation she has with Denth, where he discusses every man seeing himself as a hero in his own story, is a kind of subtheme for this book. In this novel, everyone does think they’re doing what’s best. The only exception to that is, perhaps, Denth himself—which makes the conversation particularly poignant.

This is one of the very first conversations I imagined for this book, as I knew it would be very important to a later one, where Vivenna talks to Vasher. And that particular conversation might just have been the first I came up with.

This particular plan, as Vivenna says, was her idea. Denth goes along with it, obtaining the forgeries that (falsely) prove that priests have been extorting Idris. However, he doesn’t plan to let them get out.

He knew that turning down this idea from Vivenna would either annoy her or even make her suspicious. He has to let her feel that she’s in control; that way he can remain in control himself and get her to the meetings he wants. Unfortunately for him, that means letting her do this, creating fake documents that could hurt the war effort.

After she vanishes, he cancels the project immediately, which is why the papers never end up materializing.

Oh, and if you’re wondering, she got the letter from her father from Lemex’s stash. Some people asked about this.

Jewels and Parlin Chat and Laugh

Vivenna isn’t in love with Parlin. She has affection for him, but it’s the affection one might have for a younger brother. That’s all she’s ever felt for someone so far, however, as she’s never given herself a chance for romance in her life. She’s always stamped it out. She was going to marry the God King. No room for childish things like love for her. (That will bite her eventually, of course. In a later book, I’m afraid.)

Her affection for Parlin, however, makes her possessive of him. He’s her best tie back to the life she left, and she’s always kind of seen him as hers. So you can probably see why she might be annoyed to see him spend time with Jewels.

Denth is right. Jewels might be amused by Parlin, but she’s not interested in him romantically. She has other ties, which I believe I discussed in a previous annotation.